Marquette Golden Eagles (8-15, 3-9 Big East) vs Butler Bulldogs (13-10, 4-8 Big East)
Date: Saturday, February 7, 2026
Time: 1pm Central
Location: Fiserv Forum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Marquette Stats Leaders
Points: Nigel James, 15.4 ppg
Rebounds: Ben Gold, 5.4 rpg
Assists: Nigel James, 4.7 apg
Marquette Injury Note: Sean Jones has missed the last nine games with a foot issue. He was out of his walking boot during the Providence game last week, so he’s moving closer towards a return but was still listed as Out on the availability report before Friday’s game against Butler. With eight games played already this season, but just 10 games left to go, I presume that he will play again if the doctors clear him before the season ends.
Butler Stats Leaders
Points: Finley Bizjack, 17.7 ppg
Rebounds: Michael Ajayi, Big East best 11.3 rpg
Assists: Michael Ajayi, 3.1 apg
KenPom.com Rankings
Marquette: #113
Butler: #74
Game Projection: Butler has a 51% chance of victory, with a predicted score of 79-78.
The Stakes: Marquette has nine Big East losses. A 10th loss in a 20 game conference schedule guarantees that MU will not have a winning record in conference play for the first time under the direction of Shaka Smart.
The Stakes, Part 2: Marquette has eight wins and 15 losses with eight regular season games left to go. The next loss by Marquette will mean that they will finish the regular season with a losing record for the first time since 2014-15.
Last Time Out: When Marquette visited Hinkle Fieldhouse on January 23, it looked like it was going to go poorly for the Golden Eagles when they gave up a 13-2 run in the first five minutes after getting the first basket of the game. It was tied at 17 though, and then 41-36 at the half, and as the clock clicked towards four minutes remaining, Marquette had gotten themselves within two, 74-72. Another 13-2 run for the Bulldogs ended the game, although the Golden Eagles threw in a bucket at the last second to make the final score 87-76. Marquette got just three defensive stops in the final six minutes and change of the game, but that was just the story of the entire game, as it was then and is still now one of MU’s worst defensive performances of the season.
Since Last We Met: At the time, you could have made an argument that beating Marquette for a third straight victory had steered Butler in a direction of a chance at an NCAA tournament at-large bid. They didn’t have any truly bad losses, and road losses to Creighton and Xavier as part of a four game Big East losing skid weren’t going to damage them that badly.
However, the Bulldogs have not capitalized on their prosperity. They lost their next game, falling by 22 on the road against St. John’s, but that’s not a damaging loss, just a missed opportunity to make a case for the postseason. Losing by 13 at home to Georgetown? That’s damaging. Losing in double overtime to Providence after PC tied it late in regulation on a free throw off a questionable foul call and then Finley Bizjack missed two free throws from a questionable foul call with 0.8 to play after going 12-for-12 up to that point? AND THEN Michael Ajayi drew a foul going to the rack with 6.5 left in the first overtime missed one of his two free throws to tie the game at 82 and then they let Jaylin Sellers get all the way to the rack at the horn, but he misses to let it go to another extra session? And then Butler gives up the first 10 points in the second overtime and thus has no chance in the final two minutes? And that’s your third straight loss, the second time in league play that you’ve lost at least three in a row?
That’s damaging.
Tempo Free Fun: There’s a lot of what happened when Marquette had the ball at Hinkle Fieldhouse that explains why Marquette lost. Shooting 72% on two-point attempts doesn’t really help you out all that much when you shoot 5-for-27 from behind the three-point line. Turning the ball over 20% of the time doesn’t help you at all, especially when Chase Ross (3), Nigel James (5), and Adrien Stevens (3), in theory your best ballhandling players because they are your backcourt starters, combine for 11 of the team’s 14 turnovers in the game. It’s a mess, obviously, and any number of solutions, up to and including Stevens not fouling out after 26 minutes of action, could have turned things around for the Golden Eagles on that end of the floor. Yeah, they lost by 11, but maybe two buckets here or there or two fewer turnovers here or there shift how anything in the game transpired.
However.
Did you catch that I mentioned that Marquette gave up a 13-2 run early and a 13-2 run late?
That means that Marquette won the rest of the game 72-61. Even drop out the first bucket and last bucket for Marquette, that’s 68-61 Marquette in between the two 13-2 Butler runs. Marquette played well enough to win for about 30 minutes, maybe a little bit more than that. The problem is that they had already put themselves behind the eight-ball out of the gate, and all their battling for the middle 30 minutes was then invalidated by the late run. It’s a 40 minute game and it all matters, and you can’t give up a 26-4 run and expect to win a basketball game, even if the run was split in half 30 minutes apart.
You also can’t expect to win a game when for the entirety of 40 minutes, you give up 1.24 points per possession. Marquette shot it great inside the arc, sure, but so did Butler, connecting to the tune of more than 60%. Butler grabbed nearly 40% of their rare misses for a second chance. Butler only turned it over 16% of the time, well below Marquette’s defensive standard this season.
Even with the problems on offense that I noted earlier, the first meeting with Butler falls into the top half of Marquette’s offensive performances this season. A mediocre defensive effort from MU is probably enough to win this game. Instead, it was and still is right now the third worst defensive performance of the season. Everything has been a struggle for the Golden Eagles this season, but defense is the thing you can control the most because a lot of it is really just paying attention and putting in the effort. On top of that, Marquette head coach Shaka Smart loves to preach that when you get stops on defense, everything gets easier on offense because everyone gets fired up about making the stop. Sometimes that’s an esoteric point, but sometimes it’s literally “you made a steal and get a quick runout for a dunk.” Everyone gets excited about that, not just the players, but also the thousands in attendance if you’re playing a home game like Marquette will be on Saturday.
The first game between these two teams was close, mostly speaking. Marquette has been playing better as of late. Butler seems to be dropping into a skid as their season approaches the end game. This game figures to be a close one again, and maybe home court advantage is the difference, just like it might have been the difference in Indianapolis in the first meeting.
Marquette Last 10 Games: 3-7, but alternating wins and losses for the last four games.
Butler Last 10 Games: 3-7 with losses in the last three games.
All-Time Series: Marquette leads, 28-26.
Current Streak: Butler’s win at Hinkle Fieldhouse earlier this season snapped a three game Marquette winning streak in this series. However, the Golden Eagles have won six of the last eight, nine of the last 12, and 12 of the last 15.
Follow Anonymous Eagle on social media
Facebook: AnonymousEagle
Instagram: AnonymousEagleSBN
Bluesky: AnonymousEagle